First we examined the Club House. It stank of excrement, had had several mortars right through the roof, and had nothing of use left in it. All the furniture was in the kampong below, if it hadn’t already been sold. Toilet paper, a few electric bulbs and fans, and some correspondence was the total bag. Among the correspondence we were distressed to find that the members had had to complain three times that the 11 o’clock Sunday morning curry-puffs were not served hot enough! But the gem was a file of correspondence between an R.A.F. officer of the adjacent camp and the Golf Club secretary. To defend the R.A.F. camp from the ground it had apparently been necessary to lay out M.G. and other positions on the sacred golf course; and this would have just ruined certain holes. The R.A.F. officer, clearly a keen golfer, entered into the spirit of the thing. It shocked him to the core to have to drive over a camouflaged pill-box instead of a bunker, and the correspondence dawdled on for weeks. We saw signs of defence works on the course now, but every fairway was a mass of mortar craters. It had had it both ways.

The Bukit Timah course must have been very beautiful. Not a glimpse of rubber disfigured the countryside, not a palm was to be seen there. Great green-black trees swept round the reservoirs on the far side of the course, and beyond lay the Forest Reserve. One could well sympathise with the secretary, and for all the good those few extra positions did, well . . .

But the Club Dormy House and the rest of the camp were more productive. In the Dormy House, which had been the Stationery Department, we found packets and packets of typing paper, pens and pencils; and also a little undiscovered tinned food. Cheap cotton curtains did for towels or sheets, but there were only a few of them. Among the burnt out huts were collected a few iron bedsteads, and there were several little wooden cupboards and shelves. But of the much needed clothing there was nothing at all.

The Nip in charge of our camp was a certain Sgt Inotani. We had a Brigadier in charge of the British. Our interpreter was a private in the Malay Volunteers. We learnt that our work was to turn the golf course into a public memorial. The whole course would be a sort of public park; we were to intersect it with roads, and on top of the hill at the back of the reservoirs would be a shrine dedicated to the Japanese Fallen; a smaller one lower down would commemorate the Allied losses. Next morning we were to parade at 9.30 at the back of the Club House, to be called over and receive our tasks.